Blyth

Incident Type: Search

Northumbria Police requested Mountain Rescue’s support for a high risk missing person in the Blyth area on Friday afternoon. After an initial conversation between the PolSA and our duty controller, Mountain Rescue resources were deployed. Whilst travelling to the incident, a higher priority activation was received and resources were redirected to Hadrian’s Wall (see Incident No. 14).

The following day the Teams agreed to redeploy to the Bebside area of Blyth. With the open areas having been overflown by the National Police Air Service helicopter the day before, the ground search focused on wooded areas near to where the missing person was last seen two weeks previously. The area was a mix of open woodland, significant windfall and thick gorse bushes with some small areas of standing water on boggy ground.

Search groups were assisted by two Mountain Rescue Search Dogs England teams and a Police drone team.

After a brief interlude for the below incident, the search was completed by mid-afternoon. Despite everyone’s best efforts the missing person was not located and Police enquiries are ongoing.

The incidents involved 16 Team members for 1 hour 5 minutes on day one and 16 Team members for 8 hours on day two.